It Pays To Be Part of the American Quarter Horse Incentive Fund

The American Quarter Horse Journal, October 5, 2009 – Invest. Perform. Earn. It’s that simple when it comes to participating in the AQHA Incentive Fund.

In a nutshell, the Incentive Fund was created as a way to reward and encourage AQHA members for showing their American Quarter Horses. If you nominate your American Quarter Horse stallion to the AQHA Incentive Fund by October 31, 2009, you’ll be eligible to win a John Deer trimmer.

Stallions are enrolled on an annual basis for each breeding season, making their offspring eligible to be enrolled as well. The available money in the Incentive Fund is divided by the number of points earned by the enrolled horses in the open and amateur divisions of AQHA competition throughout the year, making each point worth a certain amount of money. The point value is then multiplied by the number of points earned by the horse to determine the accumulated amount for the year.

The 2008 show season saw a record-high in total points – 147,864 – earned by nominated horses, which is 10,066 more points than in 2007. The point value in 2008 was $22.35, which resulted in a 2008 payout of $3,305,489.51.

“I tell all of my customers that if they’re raising horses that will compete in AQHA shows, they’ve got to enroll them in the AQHA Incentive Fund. A majority of buyers won’t even look at show horses that aren’t in the Incentive Fund. That’s how important it is to the industry,” said Mike Jennings of Professional Auction Services in Leesburg, Virginia.

The earnings for each horse are split between the current owner when points were earned, the stallion’s nominator the year of the foal’s conception and the foal’s nominator in an 80-10-10 percent split. Currently, there are 351,587 horses enrolled in the fund, and $63,016,263.69 has been paid out since the first checks were written in 1986.

If your stallion is enrolled in the Incentive Fund, you’ll receive the following benefits: • Use of the AQHA Incentive Fund logo on all of your advertising • 10 percent of all money earned by your stallion’s foals • Premium advertising options on www.aqha.com for your stallion • Added exposure for your business online • An investment that pays off

Stallions available for breeding must be nominated to the AQHA Incentive Fund Program by November 30, prior to the breeding season the nomination is for, in order to make foals conceived during that year eligible for participation in the program.

Learn more about the Incentive Fund at www.aqha.com/showing/awards/incentivefund or call (806) 376-4811. It’s the longest-running and most affordable way to earn money in the show arena!

Read about one horse – Harley D Zip – that has benefited from the AQHA Incentive Fund, by checking out “Revving Up the Returns” in the April 2009 issue of The American Quarter Horse Journal.

AQHA news and information is a service of AQHA publications. For more information on The American Quarter Horse Journal, The American Quarter Horse Racing Journal or America’s Horse, visit www.aqha.com/magazines.